


many lyrics to choose from (but only one of you)

by biggrstaffbunch



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-27
Updated: 2013-06-27
Packaged: 2017-12-16 09:23:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/860534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biggrstaffbunch/pseuds/biggrstaffbunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn's asked an unusual question during a soundcheck. Louis wants to know more.  </p><p>|A ridiculously self-indulgent fic that explores some ideas of racial/ethnic/religious identity and friendship.|</p>
            </blockquote>





	many lyrics to choose from (but only one of you)

**Author's Note:**

> For context, you must read this: http://steverogersorbust.tumblr.com/post/53902294614/why-zayn-malik-is-the-best-bye
> 
> This fic is based on a question asked at a recent soundcheck, and I just ran with the idea. Literally have no clue whether my insights are correct or applicable to Zayn or not, but the story wouldn't leave me alone.
> 
> Thanks to Liri, for constant encouragement. xo

|

It's a long ride to Boston, and Louis can't sleep.

The lads are all still awake, too, which means tonight's show was particularly buzzing. Louis can still feel it in his limbs, the satisfaction that comes with having sung a good song and done it _well_ , the pride and disbelief (still) that underwrites his memory of a roaring crowd.

So, jittery and restless, Louis does what he always does. Clambers off his bunk, makes his way to the designated Quiet Corner of the bus, and dive-bombs Zayn where he sits against the large tinted windows, sketching.

"Wanker," Zayn mutters without heat,  because Louis has pretty much ensured that whatever Zayn was drawing is now a mess of scribbled lines.

In response, Louis smiles brightly up from his comfortable sprawl across Zayn's lap, his head halfway cushioned by the sketchbook and halfway by his friend's absurdly skinny thighs.

"Takes one to know one," Louis says primly, making an obscene gesture. Zayn rolls his eyes but laughs, slipping his sketchbook gently out from under Louis' head.

"What's up?" he asks, carding his hand through Louis' messy hair.  There's a weariness lurking at the corners of his gaze that catches Louis' attention now as it's done all day, a bone deep exhaustion that no one ever seems to embody as well as Zayn.

"You're tired," Louis says instead of answering, nuzzling into Zayn’s hand. "Go to sleep, man."

Zayn's mouth crooks into a trademark half-smile. "Can't," he says matter-of-factly.

Louis sighs. He knows. “I know,” he says.

They sit like that for a little while, Louis letting his heart rate slow down to sync up with Zayn’s, listening to the distant sounds of FIFA and the rumble of the bus wheels.

The thing is, outsiders might think that Louis’ the loudest of the bunch (which is a load of shite, has no one ever _heard_ Niall?) but in reality, he and Zayn are such a pair because they value silence in a way none of the other lads do. It’s not sleep, or music, or a spot of cheeky 2 am journal writing; instead, Louis finds that he and Zayn come back to themselves best when they can share the quiet. Strip away the pretense and the expectations and just _be_.

With Zayn, Louis doesn’t have to be deliberately cold just because his warmth might be misconstrued. And with Louis, Zayn doesn’t have to pretend not to be affected by people’s increasingly useless opinions about their lives.

Which reminds Louis, actually.

“Hey, Zayn?”

The hand that was rifling through Louis’ messy fringe slows. “Hmm?” Zayn asks, and Louis feels a flush of satisfaction that Zayn already sounds more comfortable, more sleepy than he did a few minutes ago.

“That girl at soundcheck today...” he trails off, unsure of how to say what he wants to say.

“Which, the one with the mum who was sick?” Zayn sounds concerned now, knows how hard that sort of thing hits at Louis, makes him imagine all kinds of nightmare scenarios. Zayn’s the same way; dreams of home even as the bright lights have yet to fade from view, thinks of Yorkshire with longing even as they jet off to Tokyo and Sydney and Los Angeles.

Two lads from the North, making it big. Sometimes they brew a cuppa just to smell the steam as it curls, dark and familiar, letting the tension in their bones settle.

Louis takes a shuddering breath, thinks of the girls and his mum and Dan back in Doncaster. Thinks of empty houses. Is glad of the solid presence below his head, of the hand that Zayn’s placed now over Louis’ heart.

“Nah,” he says after a minute, “the other one. The really tiny one, in the purple shirt. Batman girl.”

Zayn’s smile widens, involuntary. “Bollywood girl, yeah?” he corrects, tongue peeking from behind his teeth.

Louis snorts. “Yeah. Bollywood girl.” He remembers the girl, so short he couldn’t find her in the crowd at first. Shaking as she held the microphone, but looking at Zayn with a sort of single-minded intensity that made him feel a bit sorry for Harry, who was just out of her sight line and almost sure to be ignored.

“It was nice, what she said.” Louis ventures, watching Zayn’s face. When he wants to be, Zayn can be inscrutable. But Louis’ always been good at figuring out what Zayn’s body language hides, because for all that Zayn is openly affectionate and demonstrative, Louis’ love is more deeply steeped in observation, seeing the things that no one else does, figuring out what hurts and fixing it for the people about whom he cares.

After the soundcheck, there’d been a stillness to Zayn, a sort of faraway quality that makes Louis think there’s something eating away on the inside.

Now, a guarded expression skitters over Zayn’s features. He looks, for a moment, shy.

“Yeah,” Zayn says. “It was really nice.”

And there’s loads more subtext in that statement than anyone knows.

Louis had felt an irrational sort of fear when the girl had first said, “This question is for Zayn,” the sort of instinctive rise of hackles that always comes when one of them is singled out, because it can never mean anything good. (They’re better together, after all.) But then the girl had  talked, and Zayn’s face--

Just. It’s been a long time since he’s seen Zayn look so cautiously proud of himself.

“When I was younger, yeah?” Zayn’s voice is hesitant, like he’s asking to speak. Louis has a feeling Zayn hasn’t even sorted his head all out for himself yet, but that’s okay. Louis’ always been a good sounding board, and Zayn is always worth listening to.

He pokes Zayn’s knee, a gesture to continue. Zayn tugs on Louis’ ear, swiping his thumb down the stubble of Louis’ cheek, and does:

“My friends and I, we used to listen to Jay Sean all the time. For us, it was like a massive deal for some Punjabi guy to have music out and not be, I dunno, made fun of? Or pushed into that little box where you’re expected to have sitars over every track?”

Louis snorts, and Zayn does too, scratching at Louis’ scalp in agreement.

“It’s just like, we used to sing and rap and dream, but... I kept thinking about everything we’d have to change to make it big. Wondering whether anyone would listen to demos if they came from blokes with names like Iskander or Baljit.”

Louis frowns. “You changed your name,” he realizes, no accusation but a certain sadness in his voice.  

Zayn shrugs. “Yeah,” he said. “But not a lot. Not even close to what I thought I’d have to do. My sisters’ names are Waliyha and Doniya and Safaa, man. There’s no pretending for them...doesn’t matter that they’re just as much my mum’s as my dad’s, you know? All people see is that part that makes it easy for ‘em to send fucking _vile_ tweets to a kid they don’t even know.” For a second, Zayn’s accent thickens, words tumbling out in a vicious spill, a familiar cadence that means slow-burning fury.

Then, he exhales, seems to deflate. Shrugs again. “At least _I_ had a Power Ranger name.”

Derailed momentarily, Louis squawks. “No!” he protests. “Which?”

Zayn smiles smugly. “Space Rangers. Silver Ranger. Zhane was Andros’ childhood friend and he got with the villian turned good guy Karone, who, like--”

Louis pinches Zayn’s lips together to keep him from speaking. “Shh,” he says sternly.

After a second, he lets go. “It sucks that you had to change anything at all, Zayn. And it sucks that you have idiots who say shit about your religion or your skin color or your culture, because it’s not anyone’s business. If they love you, they can’t just love pieces of you. They’ve gotta love everything, especially when there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that stuff in the first place.”

 _People are dumb fucks_ , is what Louis doesn’t say. His thoughts turn dark. _Zap! I launch every mouth breather internet troll into space without a compression suit_.

Zayn ducks his head, lashes long and dark, mouth quirked like he knows what Louis is thinking. “Yeah,” he agrees wryly. “Well.” His shoulders move. “I dunno, Lou. Like, hearing that girl say thank you...it felt like, there were people out there who are the same as me. Who cared about something more than m’looks or, or our music, or just because I’m famous. Like, I’m a symbol for them. I’m Jay Sean.” He pauses, then smiles again. “Nah, I’m Kamaljit Singh Jooti.”

It’s Louis’ turn to shrug, but Zayn just leans back, satisfied. “That stuff that I feel like I have to hide sometimes...or that stuff that I never really felt was important to like, acknowledge as a part of me...that girl said she loved me _because_ of those things, not despite ‘em. You know?”

Louis doesn’t, not exactly, but he nods anyway. Zayn beams.

(When Zayn gets excited, everything in him seems to light up. Louis feels himself light up, too.)

“She asked you to sing for her,” Louis says absently. His hand moves up from where it was resting on his belly, settling now on top of Zayn’s, which has been riding and falling on Louis’ chest as he breathes. “How come you didn’t?”

Zayn huffs a breath out, smile dimming. “Haven’t heard those songs in ages,” he explains, shifting a little. “Would’ve forgot the words, or messed it up somehow.”

Louis scrambles up at this, so momentarily incensed that he almost rolls right off Zayn’s lap. Only tugging on Zayn’s shirt keeps him on the lounge seat, and even then, Zayn’s now half sprawled across the seat.

“That’s a crap excuse, DJ Malik!” Louis cries. “You get a copy of that DVD every year for Christmas, I know because I’ve seen the pile in your sitting room. And every single one has been opened and watched.”

Zayn look shifty. “It’s really romantic,” he says. “Perrie loves it.”

Louis taps Zayn on the left bicep where his most recent tattoo is healing, raising an eyebrow. “Well then, sing it for her,” he says, grinning. “If my good looks and charm aren’t good enough.”

Zayn goes pink at the edges. “C’mere,” he says gruffly, and wrestles Louis down to sit next to him, cuddling him close under the crook of his arm.

“When I sing,” he says, voice low and heavy with what Louis thinks is gratitude, “I sing because I can’t not, yeah? That’s who I am. It’s a part of me. Right here.”

He touches Louis’ chest again, over his heart. Up close, in the dim lighting and with his hair all soft, the lines that had etched into Zayn’s face at tonight’s show seem to ease. He looks, for a moment, like he’s seventeen again and just meeting them all, awkward and uncertain but so talented it made Louis’ breath catch.

“But when I sing these songs...that’s a choice. It’s something not everyone is gonna want, because of what it means. How it makes me different. It’s a gift I had to learn how to give at the right times, an’ the right places.”

Louis knows about gifts. Knows how generous his friends are, how kind. But this kind of present, this welcoming into a corner of Zayn’s life that he has never had to share before, it’s precious. Louis realizes with a sudden clarity that none of the other boys have ever heard Zayn say more than the requisite ‘I love you’ in Urdu. Have not celebrated Eid with him since Majorca. Have not asked to watch his favorite movie, or learned how to properly say the names of some of his cousins.

“Can I hear?” Louis asks, infusing his voice with as much sincerity as possible. Because Louis can eat chicken jalfrezi when it’s served at Zayn’s dinner table, or wish Zayn a happy Eid, or politely not ask any questions when Zayn mutters a prayer not in English, but tolerating is different than engaging. Accepting is different than _knowing_.

And Louis wants to _know_.

It’s like peeling skin when you’re tan, a bit. Rolling away the easy layers till you’re left with something brand new, tender. But Louis loves Zayn. Loves his stupid need for constant sleep, loves the nerdy jokes, loves how deceptively strong and unafraid to break he is, how excited he gets about the strangest things. Most of all, Louis loves that Zayn has always loved Louis, without question, without condition. They understand each other. There’s a safety there, buried amidst their search for thrills.

A partnership.

If Louis is going to draw out the bad stuff in Zayn’s heart, like taking poison from a wound, undoing the chains that keep him weighed down, then it only makes sense that he’d try and unearth the good stuff, too. The stuff that makes Zayn’s eyes go bright, that makes him grin with all his teeth and crinkly eyes, that makes his shoulders inch down from around his ears.

“Zayn. Can I hear?” and what Louis is asking is _can you share this with me?_ and _Can you let me see a little bit of what that tiny Batman girl sees when she looks at you?_ and  _I'm sorry I didn't know to ask earlier, man._

Zayn’s face is shadowed when he ducks his head, lets his mouth rest near Louis’ ear, but Louis can feel the shape of his smile unfold and expand until it’s wide and happy and oh so dear.

A melody like a spool of thread, high and thin and ready, unraveling into dizzy heights. Sounds that don't register as recognizable words, manifesting only in the emotions palpable in every aching, yearning crescendo and dip. The hum under Louis' skin, in his throat, in his chest, at the tips of his fingers.

The bus rolls on.

Zayn sings.

And Louis sees.

|


End file.
